


An Eye More Bright

by TelWoman



Category: Eroica Yori Ai o Komete | From Eroica with Love
Genre: Gen, Shakespeare, Sonnet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:45:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TelWoman/pseuds/TelWoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorian spends an afternoon looking through a little-used attic at Castle Gloria, where he finds something to read.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Eye More Bright

  

_ So much in here that I’ve never had the time to look at _ .

Dorian brushed the dust off the lid of a small wooden chest. The ornate lock yielded to his lock pick with a satisfying click. He unsealed the chest, and raised the lid with care.

The chest seemed to be filled with clothing made of rich colourful fabrics. On top of the neatly folded clothes lay a small leather-bound book. Dorian lifted it out, and opened it at random. The yellowed pages were covered with script written in a clear strong hand in the style of the late sixteenth century. Leafing through the book, he found a date at the head of a page: 1594.

_ This is Benedict’s journal! _

By 1594, Benedict had been created Earl of Gloria and had taken up residence in Castle Gloria, a respectable member of the nobility, no longer a privateer. He’d been a prolific diarist, recording his experiences in a racy style – Dorian had read several volumes of his ancestor’s journal that were kept in the Castle library. 

Locking up the chest again, Dorian carried the book downstairs to his study. He poured himself a glass of wine, settled on the sofa in front of the open fire, and began to read.

Benedict recorded conversations with prominent men of the day, facts interspersed with acid comments and sly observations. Obviously, some of his fellow noblemen underestimated him and scorned him for his humble origins. Benedict’s accounts of getting the upper hand made Dorian laugh. 

Some of the entries for 1595 spoke of his intention to marry. He wrote about his attendance at Court, and gatherings in the homes of prominent families in favour with the Queen – and sometimes he mentioned young ladies by name, with comments about their beauty, or their wit, or their accomplishments. In between accounts of his quest for a marriage partner, Benedict recorded in richer detail and with far greater relish references to his friendships with young men – an actor, a poet, a University fellow who studied the stars, a lute-maker, a lawyer’s clerk, the son of a money-lender. 

Dorian thought he would get on very well with his ancestor Benedict. Oh, for a time machine. They could go clubbing together, or whatever the equivalent was in the sixteenth century, and compare notes about who they found attractive. But what if they both liked the same man? The solution to that question presented itself on the next page, where Benedict gave a lurid account of a three-way encounter with his lute-making friend and the stable-boy at an inn on the road to Canterbury.

Benedict liked the theatre; his journal was full of accounts of plays he’d seen, and comments about actors who’d performed in them. Performed in Benedict’s bed afterwards, too, in some cases. In particular, he seemed to enjoy the plays written by "the popular Mr Shakespeare".

How old would Shakespeare have been in 1595? Thirty-one? About the same age as Benedict. Did they ever meet each other? What was Shakespeare like? He must have been an interesting man – he certainly had a way with words. Those sonnets, now. Some of them were beautiful. 

Dorian had once stolen an ornate Art Nouveau silver panel that had one of Shakespeare’s sonnets engraved on it in delicate italic script. Beautiful filigree work. Pretty words. Not very valuable, but a thing of beauty. He’d kept it for a while, and then given it to a lover as a parting gift. The lover didn’t know it was a parting gift, of course; he wouldn’t have known that until he’d realised that Dorian wasn’t coming back.

Benedict attended the Twelfth Night revels for 1596 at Court, where the daughter of Sir Henry Endersby caught his eye. She was small and dainty, with a pretty singing voice. The boy who served the wine was also small and dainty, with dark eyes. Benedict wrote that he spoke attentively to Miss Endersby’s mother, hoping to impress her, and that he took care not to be observed when he left the party for an hour to dally with the dark-eyed servant boy in a corner of the wine cellar. Always playing a double game, the rogue. 

The pages that followed held more references to Shakespeare. Dorian noticed that Benedict stopped writing “Mr Shakespeare” and began instead to write “Will Shakespeare”, and then it was just “Will” – but there was very little detail. 

“To the theatre to view Will Shakespeare’s new play.” 

“Will Shakespeare presented a new work at Court. The Queen was delighted.”

“To the home of Sir Edward Bredon, where I met Will and three players of his company.”

“Heard Will read a new poem, as yet unfinished.”

Early in the summer of 1596, Dorian read, Benedict met Lady Catherine Treacey, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Rigby. Benedict wrote with enthusiasm of her beauty and her intelligence. Like most well-bred daughters of the nobility, she could dance and sing and play music, but she also enjoyed hunting and falconry. Dorian smiled when he read Benedict’s comments that Lady Catherine “rides like a boy” and “has trained her falcon as well as any lad”. 

Entries for the months of June and July mentioned renewed fighting between England and Spain. An English fleet had been formed, under the leadership of the Earl of Essex. Benedict wrote with bitter words that Essex and others had tried to get him to re-arm his ship and join them. He resisted. “I have no heart for the sea or for battle,” he wrote, “since that darkest night off Gravelines.” He didn’t elaborate on that, but Dorian knew Benedict meant the night he had killed Tyrian Persimmon.

In December of 1596 Benedict wrote, “Met Will at St Paul’s Churchyard. Will very angry, refused to speak to me. He has heard of my plans to wed Lady Catherine.”

A sheet of paper folded in four lay between the next pages of the journal. Dorian unfolded it carefully. It was written in another hand – a sonnet, with a dedication at the top. “To Benedict, my heart’s friend. Know that I love you still, although I grieve that you will belong to another.”

The dedication had been struck out with ink of a different colour, and in an untidier version of the same handwriting these words were scrawled beneath it: “This poem is a lie. I schooled myself to be generous because as a Lord you must marry. With all my heart I wish I could be selfless enough to give you my blessing. I cannot. I love you yet, although all your declarations of love are shown to be hollow. You are as false and changeable as any whore that may be had for a penny at a riverside tavern. WS.”

_ A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted _   
_Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;_  
 _A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted_  
 _With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;_

_ An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, _   
_Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;_  
 _A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,_  
 _Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth._

_ And for a woman wert thou first created;  _   
_Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,_  
 _And by addition me of thee defeated,_  
 _By adding one thing to my purpose nothing._

_ But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure, _   
_Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure._

**Author's Note:**

> The sonnet Dorian found in Benedict's diary is _Sonnet 20_.


End file.
